


Come As You Aren’t

by badly_knitted



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Community: fic_promptly, Episode: s2e06 Halloween, Gen, Halloween, Halloween Costumes, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 22:36:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8942113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badly_knitted/pseuds/badly_knitted
Summary: Halloween is the time to dress as you’re not, but Willow’s having second thoughts about the whole concept.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Juliet316](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Juliet316/gifts).



> Written for juliet316’s prompt ‘Author's choice, author's choice, the one night of year you can choose to be somebody/something else altogether and nobody bats an eye,’ at fic_promptly.
> 
> **Spoilers:** Halloween.

Halloween is the one night of the year when a person can completely reinvent themself, be anyone or anything they choose to be and nobody bats an eye because most of them are doing exactly the same thing. That’s the gist of what Buffy’s trying to explain to Willow with her ‘come as you aren’t’ speech.

Intellectually, Willow gets it, but she’s not Buffy, she’s Willow, computer geek, and this outfit so isn’t her. The very thought of going out in public looking like this leaves her quaking is her borrowed boots. The skirt is too short, the top too low cut, she’s bare and naked around the middle and… and… She’s even wearing makeup and lipstick. Looking in the mirror she sees a stranger, a _hot_ stranger, and that creeps her out even more. 

She can’t be the sexy creature she sees reflected in the mirror. It’s one thing to dress this way and entirely another to _be_ this girl. Willow doesn’t know how to act, how to speak, how to even walk as this other person, all she knows is how to be herself. What was she even thinking letting Buffy talk her into this?

Deep down she knows Buffy is just trying to help her come out of her shell a bit so that boys, namely Xander, might start taking an interest in her. Willow’s grateful to her friend for caring and for trying, but this is too much too soon.

Willow wishes she _could_ be the girl Buffy is trying to make her into, and maybe sometime in the future she will be, if she ever finds the nerve. For now though, there’s only one thing she can do, and so she does it.

The ghost costume covers everything; the skimpy outfit, the bare belly, the carefully applied make-up… They’re all still there, but Willow is safely undercover, where she can be her usual geeky self. Buffy is going to be disappointed in her, but that’s something Willow can live with. After all, she’s already disappointed in herself for chickening out.

One step at a time; at least she’s wearing the outfit Buffy picked out for her, even if no one else will see it. That has to count for something, right?

Straightening her sheet, Willow heads downstairs to face the music.

The End


End file.
